Without any doubt, people prefer wearing a good pair of denim jeans over any other style of pants. Jeans are practical, comfortable, durable, and can be paired with virtually any pair of shoes, top, and accessory to complete a fashionable casual ensemble. This innovation in fashion did not start overnight, it evolved.
It all started in Nimes, France during the 17th century. The denim fabric used to be called “serge de Nimes”, named after the town of Nimes. Early denim was made from a combination of woven silk and wool. In Genoa, Italy, people started using this fabric for trousers and pants. Eventually they started calling it jeans.
As time passed, the components of the denim fabric changed. Denim evolved into a cotton twill weave instead of the previous silk and wool blend. An indigo dye was also blended which brought about the signature blue color that we know today.
In the 19th century, a US immigrant name Loeb Strauss, who changed his name to Levi, was able to introduce denim jeans to American society. Workers and miners complained that their work pants would easily tear and get destroyed. Strauss saw this problem and designed a pair of denim jeans, strengthened with copper rivets, and introduced it to the working class, which provided comfort and durability. Strauss then paired up with Jacob Davis and they patented the design. This pair of denim jeans became popular and was given the name we know now as “Levis”.
In the 1930’s, denim jeans started to grow in popularity when American cowboys and factory workers started using it for everyday wear. With the growing popularity of jeans, other companies like Wrangler and Lee started to produce their own denim designs.
Denim jeans became widely accepted as a form of urban clothing during the 1970’s. At this time, denim jeans were being produced in different styles and fashion. Stretch jeans, embroidered jeans, and stone-washed jeans were some of the various styles that were introduced and became popular.
By the 1980’s and 1990’s, famous US and European designers, seeing the market of the denim jeans industry, started to design various styles of denim jeans and exporting these worldwide. These designer jeans started to flood the markets that took away the large market share of older true jeans producers like Levis, Wrangler, and Lee.
Today, almost all popular brand names carry their own line of denim jeans. A pair of designer jeans or a pair of cheap jeans is so easy to find and purchased. In spite of denim jeans becoming very common, it still remains to be a staple in the fashion industry. It is said that an average person has around 4-5 pairs of denim jeans in their wardrobe collection.
The evolution of denim jeans still continues today. Big name designers are still redesigning and reinventing the styles and function of a pair of pants that used to be just ordinary work clothes of the working class.
No comments:
Post a Comment